


Biblichor

by EternalEclipse



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Brain tumor, Character Study, Gen, and associated symptoms, book burning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:13:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27163684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EternalEclipse/pseuds/EternalEclipse
Summary: Biblichor: The smell of old books, stemming from root words 'biblio', meaning book, and 'ichor', meaning 'the fluid that flows like blood in the veins of the gods'.Gerry Keay's life work was protecting the general sheep public from the Entities, but especially Leitners. He wasn't going to let something like a brain tumor take him out of the game.
Relationships: Gerard Keay & Adelard Dekker, Gerard Keay & Gertrude Robinson
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Biblichor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jain/gifts).



When the headaches started, they weren’t anything unusual. His entire life was a kaleidoscope of pain and fear; a low level migraine didn’t even register most of the time. He hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since the night his mother murdered his father and instilled a fear in him that should he not be more useful alive, she’d do the same to him. Feeding the End, he’d guessed. Even the nausea, when it came, was easily explained by the nature of the work, and all the things he couldn’t do about it.

No, it took until the seizures began for him to really notice. There was no reason they couldn’t have been associated with a fear, he’d supposed. Fear of losing control, fear of death, fear of hurting someone by accident, take your pick. He’d wanted it to be just that. Just one more thing his mother had dragged him into by nature of her obsession.

No, he wouldn’t sugarcoat it any longer. He wanted for once in his life to have a pretty little lie that everything was fine and would work out without further problems. As ever, he learned the world didn’t work like that. The tumor, when they found it, was inoperable.

It didn’t stop the work, of course. It just meant that he had to go in with a partner for once, lest he choke to death on his own spit or something similarly humiliating. He’d first approached Adelard Dekker. He’d known of the man primarily by reputation, and that reputation was that he was working to make the world a better place. There was worse for that than the Web. He’d be a hypocrite to say that anyone working with the entities at all couldn’t fight their influence properly.

Now, Dekker. The man had truly impressed him with the scope of his work against the larger manifestations of the entities. Gerry had long since learned how to deal with Leitners, but working with Dekker was a masterclass beyond anything his mother knew, for sure. He wasn’t sure whether or not he bought the whole Extinction thing. No reason why not, he supposed. Fear was fear, and as useful as Smirke’s taxonomy was, he’d long since been rubbing against its limitations. Why not one more?

They had worked together for nine months before the other shoe fell. They’d been apart for barely a week on separate missions when Gerry heard the news. He supposed he was lucky that Dekker made him an introduction to Gertrude Robinson before he died in some Corruption plaguescape.

In her defense, she had impressed Gerry with her resolve and her ruthlessness. She saw the bookplate of his latest find, checked just enough to know that it wouldn’t like fire, and burned it right there in her office. When he checked, he saw that the smoke detector had been unscrewed. It was the beginning of a partnership, for all that Gertrude Robinson had no real need of one.

He’d even let her get rid of his mother, once she had proved herself able. Her haunting him was as familiar as the ache between his ears, but he couldn’t say he wasn’t glad that she was gone.

The first bad seizure he’d had in front of her, she’d barely broken a sweat. She put her sweater under his head, and Gerry knew that she’d read up on seizure care for him. For a woman who dared not be curious about anything she didn’t absolutely have to be, this was a true gift. Proof he’d made a good choice. And he hadn’t died, so great, his grand plan was working.

His regard for Gertrude had lasted right up until he died, and she bound him in this horrible book, and left him there. This book, that he now knew had once held his father, that had once held his mother, that he thought destroyed a year ago and that he would have destroyed now given half a chance and some bubblegum. He couldn’t afford another pretty little lie, not like this, so he didn’t tell himself that this was fine, that this too could be pushed through. No, he didn’t dare hope to ever escape and maybe even die for real in some way the entities couldn’t touch, no matter how badly he wanted it. It wasn’t like he feared death, after all, but he did fear the death of hope. Blasted Terminus.

You’d think that being dead would be painless. But even in this in-between state his head still ached, and his stomach twisted with nausea despite the months since he’d last been able to eat, and in his mind’s eye he was sitting because balance was hard. He still hurt, and without any other pains that hurt magnified almost beyond what he could bear. He didn’t want to feel like this. He didn’t want to feel at all.

Maybe, if he ever talked to someone again, he’d ask them to burn his page with a cigarette. He missed cigarettes, and maybe they could make his head stop hurting just the one more time.


End file.
